American composer of mostly stage and chamber works that have been performed throughout the world.

Ms. Vierk earned her BA in ethnomusicology and piano at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1974, then studied composition with Mel Powell, Leonard Stein and Morton Subotnick at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita, where she earned her MFA in 1978. In addition, she studied gagaku (court music from Japan) privately with Suenobu Togi in Los Angeles in the 1970s and studied ryūteki (bamboo flute from Japan) privately with Sukeyasu Shiba in Tōkyō in the 1980s.